Archive for month: June, 2013

Animal welfare reform focuses on the supply side of exploitation. The idea is to provide a supply of more “humanely” produced animal products. The idea also is to make that supply more expensive so that consumers buy fewer animal products.

But the theory and the reality are different. Even those who support welfare reform often still buy conventional, “lower welfare” products (in my view, all animal products are low welfare) and, even if the price of some animal products increases as a result of welfare reforms (as opposed to myriad other factors that affect price), demand does not change much because demand for many animal products is what economists call “inelastic,” or not sensitive to price increases within a particular range.

And even if the price goes up so that demand is affected, consumers will simply buy processed or cheaper animal foods. In other words, there is no reason to think that if the price of beef goes up, consumers buy tofu.

The only effective way to deal with animal exploitation is to focus on the demand side and to educate people about why they should not consume animal products. Period. There are many people out there who care about animals as a moral matter. Rather than telling those people that they can discharge their moral obligations to animals by consuming “happy” animal products, we should be educating them about why the only sensible response to recognizing that animals matter morally is to stop consuming them and to go vegan.

To put it another way: if you think that what Michael Vick did was wrong because we should not impose suffering and death on other sentient beings just because we enjoy doing so, you are committed to not consuming animals, which can only be justified by palate pleasure. Just as pleasure does not work for Vick, it does not work for the rest of us.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

Yesterday, I visited Whole Foods and my purchases were placed in this bag:

Think about the message: When an animal, a commodity, an “it”–is “raised right,” “it tastes right.”

And just about every large animal organization in the United States expressed their “appreciation and support” to Whole Foods for its “happy” exploitation program:

This is shameful. And the blame does not lie with Whole Foods. Whole Foods is just a corporation that is trying to make money for its shareholders. The problem is that animal organizations think of Whole Foods as a partner in the promotion of “happy” exploitation.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

As animal advocates, we oppose speciesism because, like racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination, it uses a morally irrelevant criterion (species) to discount and devalue the interests of sentient beings.

But our opposition to speciesism means that we do have a position on these other forms of discrimination. That is, we cannot oppose speciesism but claim that, as animal advocates, we do not have a position on these other forms of discrimination. We cannot say: “We reject species as a morally objectionable criterion to discount or devalue the interests of nonhumans but we do not have a position on whether race, sex, or sexual orientation/preference are morally objectionable criteria when used to discount or devalue human interests.”

Our opposition to speciesism requires that we oppose all discrimination.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

I am critical of single-issue campaigns (SICs). I am often asked if promoting the adoption or fostering of homeless animals is a single-issue campaign. The answer is that it is not and the question indicates confusion about what an SIC is and why SICs are objectionable.

Although all welfarist campaigns can be characterized as SICs, that term is usually applied to campaigns that at least appear to seek to abolish or prohibit, and not just regulate, certain animal uses, such as the use of animals for fur, or for meat (or for certain kinds of meat), the use of wild animals in circuses, particular sorts of blood sports, such as bullfighting, the use of horses in the carriage-horse trade, hunting (or particular sorts of hunting or the hunting of particular species), etc.

I have at least four problems with SICs.

First, SICs convey the idea that some forms of exploitation are worse than other forms of exploitation. In a culture in which animal exploitation is pervasive, that necessarily means that the target of the campaign is seen as being morally more objectionable than what is not focused on, which is seen as being morally “better” or even morally acceptable.

So if most people think that eating meat and dairy and eggs is “natural” and raises no moral problem, focusing on meat necessarily conveys the idea that dairy and eggs are different and that their consumption is morally acceptable or, at least, morally distinguishable, and not as morally objectionable as consuming meat.

A campaign focused on foie gras treats that particular product as morally distinguishable from other animal products, such as fried chicken or hamburgers. It tells people that it’s morally better to eat chicken and hamburgers because foie gras is morally distinguishable and morally worse. A campaign that focuses on fur implies that wool and leather are morally “better” than fur.

I reject that sort of thinking in favor of promoting the idea that veganism is the only rational response to the recognition that animals have moral value. I do not believe that there is a coherent moral distinction between meat and dairy/eggs or between foie gras and beef, chicken, or fish or between fur and leather or wool. It’s all morally unacceptable. I think that it confuses matters seriously to promote the idea that there are moral distinctions where there are none.

Second, SICs simply cannot work as a practical matter. They are seen as arbitrary and they make no sense to people who consume animal foods. Think about it. Those who consume animal products think it’s morally acceptable to impose suffering and death on animals for the trivial reason of palate pleasure and they participate in this animal use every day, several times a day. Why would they think that hunting is wrong when they go to the supermarket and buy products made from animals who have suffered every bit as much, if not more, than animals who are hunted? Why would they think that using animals for other trivial reasons is morally unacceptable?

Third, many single-issue campaigns encourage speciesism. Campaigns that focus on dolphins, elephants, and nonhuman primates maintain that these animals are supposedly more “like us” in terms of their intelligence and, therefore, they have greater moral value. That sort of thinking assumes that human characteristics are the measure of moral value and that human-like interests count for more. For the purposes of determining who can be used as a replaceable resource, assuming that human and human-like characteristics count for more is speciesist.

Fourth, some single-issue campaigns often promote other forms of human discrimination. For example, the anti-fur campaign has had decidedly sexist overtones from its inception decades ago. Campaigns against eating dogs and cats are often and usually accompanied by anti-Asian rhetoric. Campaigns against kosher and halal slaughter have expressed anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim sentiment.

A central part of the abolitionist approach is that domestication is inherently wrong and that we should stop producing domesticated animals for human use. I do, however, maintain that we have a moral obligation to care for those domesticated animals now in existence. I maintain that we should offer homes to nonhuman refugees of *any* species. I do not limit it to dogs and cats. I am very explicit in saying that there is no “responsible” breeding of domesticated animals.

I am not saying that some form of exploitation is morally better than another form of exploitation. I am not suggesting that we replace one form of exploitation with another form of exploitation. I am not, for example, claiming that we should adopt/foster animals and then train them for use in circuses.

I am saying that we have a problem that we have created: we have many domesticated animals who are in existence now and need homes now. We have no other morally acceptable choice but to care for those animals when we have the opportunity to do so. I have stressed that caring for domesticated animals is not without moral dilemmas. For example, some cats apparently cannot exist without eating meat. I maintain that feeding meats to cats is not morally justifiable but it may be excusable in some circumstances.

Finally, I always couple any discussion of adoption/fostering and my rejection of domestication with the other central part of the abolitionist message: veganism as the only rational response to the recognition that animals have moral value.

In sum, promoting the adoption/fostering of homeless animals is clearly not a single-issue campaign. Caring for the domesticated nonhumans of all species is a moral obligation that is central to the abolitionist approach to animal rights.

And it is beyond absurd to claim that promoting veganism is an SIC. As I discuss here, veganism, as it is conceptualized in abolitionist theory as a rejection of the injustice of animal use, encompasses our rejection of all institutionalized exploitation.

I hope that this has clarified any confusion.

*****

If you are not vegan, please go vegan. Veganism is about nonviolence. First and foremost, it’s about nonviolence to other sentient beings. But it’s also about nonviolence to the earth and nonviolence to yourself.

Please, if you can adopt a homeless animal—a dog, cat, bird, mouse, fish, cow, chicken—anyone who needs a home, do so. Adoption is an important form of activism; they’re in this mess because of us. The least that we can do is to take care of the ones we can.

As I have said since first writing on SICs in the mid-1990s, if animal advocates want to pursue SICs, which I discourage in favor of focusing exclusively on creative, nonviolent vegan education and advocacy, they should, at the very least, use the campaign to illustrate that veganism must be the moral baseline and, therefore, veganism should be an explicit, consistent, and central part of the campaign.

Let’s be clear here: I am not talking about a campaign that focuses on a particular use but where the advocates involved say “but we’re really against all animal use.” I am talking about a campaign where the particular use is explicitly and consistently coupled with a vegan message that is central to the campaign.

For example, several months ago, I was told that a Spanish group had a campaign against bullfighting that urged people to get bulls out of the ring and animal products off the table. That is, they were, I am told, using the bullfighting campaign to educate about veganism. That sort of campaign, if done properly, minimizes the risks that result when bullfighting is identified as an animal use that is morally distinguishable from, and worse than, other animal uses.

The overwhelming number of SICs do not explicitly and consistently couple the particular use with a clear vegan message. Indeed, they intentionally do the opposite. They very deliberately avoid veganism in favor of making the “issue” the particular thing that is the focus of the SIC.

The promotion of adopting/fostering homeless animals is not an SIC because it is simply of a different category; it is not seeking to identify some animal use that is “worse” than other animal uses and that, if addressed, will make animal exploitation “better.” The promotion of adopting/fostering is a direct implication of the abolitionist principle that domestication cannot be morally justified and that it should stop, but that we have a moral obligation to animals in existence to care for them in non-exploitative situations until they die.

Having said that, whenever I talk about adoption/fostering, I always emphasize the other fundamental abolitionist principle: veganism as a moral baseline.